Long gone are the days when America held any moral authority and after the PRISM surveillance revelations the roasting from Amnesty it received today isn't going to endear it any further to anyone.
Amnesty International has condemned the White House for its role in detention of a Yemeni journalist who exposed US involvement in a deadly 2009 cluster bombing.
The human rights group is urging the Yemeni authorities to investigate allegations that Abdulelah Shaye, a journalist recently released from jail, was put behind bars because his reports revealed that a 2009 missile attack in Yemen which killed 41 local residents, including 21 children, was carried out by the US and not by the Yemini Government as first claimed.
Shaye was arrested in August 2010 on charges of helping Al-Qaeda and convicted to five years in jail.
He was then given a Presidential pardon within weeks of his conviction by former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Salehand who was then the recipient of a telephone call from Barack Obama who convinced him to reverse his decision.
“Abdulelah Shaye appeared to be a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned solely for his legitimate work as a journalist,” said Amnesty International blaming 'intense political pressure applied by the USA' and attempting to 'override the judicial process in another country' after investigating the case.
Shaye has now been pardoned by the current Yemeni president after three years in prison, a decision which was met with disapproval of by the White House who said they were 'concerned and disappointed by his early release'.
Amnesty International said that they 'reiterate our calls on the Yemeni and US governments to reveal the truth about the incident that is at the heart of the actions taken against this investigative journalist – namely who was responsible for the deaths of dozens of residents in the cluster bomb attack'.
America is not making many friends recently and it's fall, and it will fall as all empires do, will be all the more painful for it.
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